Black - Netflix

Editor

The story of a grim reaper, Black who gets erased from the memories of
the world for breaking the rules of heaven and falling in love with a
mortal woman, Kang Ha Ram after inhabiting a human body.

Type: Scripted

Languages: Korean

Status: In Development

Runtime: 60 minutes

Premier: 2017-10-14

Black - Black comedy - Netflix

Black comedy, also known as dark comedy or gallows humor, is a comic
style that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered
taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or
painful to discuss. Comedians often use it as a tool for exploring
vulgar issues, thus provoking discomfort and serious thought as well as
amusement in their audience. Popular themes of the genre include death
and violence (murder, abuse, domestic violence, graphic violence, rape,
torture, war, genocide, terrorism, corruption), discrimination
(chauvinism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia), disease (anxiety,
depression, suicide, nightmares, drug abuse, mutilation, disability,
terminal illness, insanity), sexuality (sodomy, homosexuality, incest,
infidelity, fornication), religion, and barbarism. Black comedy differs
from blue comedy which focuses more on crude topics such as nudity, sex,
and bodily fluids. Although the two are interrelated, black comedy is
also different from straightforward obscenity in that it is more subtle
and does not necessarily have the explicit intention of offending
people. In obscene humor, much of the humorous element comes from shock
and revulsion, while black comedy might include an element of irony, or
even fatalism. For example, an archetypal example of black comedy in the
form of self-mutilation appears in the English novel Tristram Shandy.
Tristram, five years old at the time, starts to urinate out of an open
window for lack of a chamber pot. The sash falls and circumcises him;
his family reacts with both hysteria and philosophical acceptance.
Literary critics have associated black comedy and black humor with
authors as early as the ancient Greeks with Aristophanes. Whereas the
term black comedy is a relatively broad term covering humor relating to
many serious subjects, gallows humor tends to be used more specifically
in relation to death, or situations that are reminiscent of dying.

Black - Examples - Netflix

There are multiple recorded instances of humorous last words and final
statements. For example, author and playwright Oscar Wilde was destitute
and living in a cheap boarding house when he found himself on his
deathbed. There are variations on what his exact words were, but his
reputed last words were, “Either that wallpaper goes or I do.” Examples
of gallows speeches include: In Edo period Japan, condemned criminals
were occasionally executed by expert swordsmen, who used living bodies
to test the quality of their blade (Tameshigiri). There is an apocryphal
story of one who, after being told he was to be executed by a sword
tester, calmly joked that if he had known that was going to happen, he
would have swallowed large stones to damage the blade. One of the first
convicts transported in Australia by the British Empire, John Caesar,
escaped the penal colony in 1789 and lived as a bushranger in the
wilderness. He survived by raiding garden patches with a stolen gun.
When he was eventually caught, according to colonial governor David
Collins he was “so indifferent about meeting death, that he declared in
confinement that if he should be hanged he would create a laugh before
he was turned off, by playing some trick upon the executioner.” He was
reprieved but died six years later from gunshot wounds after escaping a
second time. Murderer James French has been attributed with famous last
words before his death by electric chair: “How's this for a headline?
'French Fries'.” As Sir Thomas More climbed a rickety scaffold where he
would be executed, he said to his executioner: “I pray you, Mr.
Lieutenant, see me safe up; and for my coming down, let me shift for
myself.” At his public execution, the murderer William Palmer is said to
have looked at the trapdoor on the gallows and asked the hangman, “Are
you sure it's safe?” Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded in the Old Palace
Yard at the Palace of Westminster on 29 October 1618. “Let us dispatch”,
he said to his executioner. “At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would
not have my enemies think I quaked from fear.” After he was allowed to
see the axe that would behead him, he mused: “This is a sharp Medicine,
but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries.” According to many
biographers – Raleigh Trevelyan in his book Sir Walter Raleigh (2002)
for instance – Sir Walter's final words (as he lay ready for the axe to
fall) were: “Strike, man, strike!” Mathias Kneißl, robber, had killed
two policemen that had tried to arrest him. On a Monday, he was
sentenced to death for intentionally murdering them (the only charge he
had denied), and commented: “Now this week really is starting nicely.”
Ronald Reagan, upon being transported to the emergency room after being
shot by John Hinckley, Jr., is reported to have said to his doctors,
““Please tell me you’re Republicans.” The Prefect of Rome executed Saint
Lawrence in a great gridiron prepared with hot coals beneath it. He had
Lawrence placed on it, hence St Lawrence's association with the
gridiron. After the martyr had suffered pain for a long time, the legend
concludes, he cheerfully declared: “I'm well done. Turn me over!” From
this derives his patronage of cooks, chefs, and comedians. Military life
is full of gallows humor, as those in the services continuously live in
the danger of being killed, especially in wartime. For example: The
Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G4M Isshikirikkou (イッシキリッコウ) “Betty”
bomber airplane was called “Hamaki” (葉巻 or はまき, meaning cigar) by
the Japanese crews not only because its fuselage was cigar-shaped, but
because it had a tendency to ignite on fire and burn violently when it
was hit. The American nickname was “flying Zippo”. When the survivors of
HMS Sheffield, sunk in 1982 in the Falklands War, were awaiting rescue,
they were reported to have sung the Monty Python song, “Always Look on
the Bright Side of Life”. Soviet pilots in World War II joked that the
true meaning of the type designation of the LaGG-3 was Lakirovanny
Garantirovanny Grob, “varnished guaranteed coffin”. Soviet military
vehicle BMP-1 was called Bratskaya Mogila Pekhoty (“mass grave of
infantry”) by soldiers, as the hit would kill all the crew. Overnight,
in the Battle of Jutland (31 May – 1 June 1916), the destroyer HMS
Tipperary was sunk; only 13 survived out of a crew of 197, in her
engagement with heavily armed German dreadnought SMS Westfalen. The
survivors were identified in the gloom by Royal Navy rescuers because
they were heard in the distance, singing, “It's a long way to
Tipperary”. Their rescuers said, “We knew it was you”. During the Winter
War the Soviet Union bombed Helsinki, and after Soviets claimed they
were air-dropping food to the “starving people of Helsinki” the Finnish
people dubbed the Soviet bombs “Molotov bread baskets”, and in return
called their firebombs Molotov cocktails, as “a drink to go with the
food.” During World War II, the Soviet soldiers dubbed the 45 mm
anti-tank gun M1937 (53-K) “Good bye, Motherland!”, as its penetration
was proving to be inadequate for the task of destroying German tanks,
meaning a crew operating one was practically defenseless against the
enemy tanks. During World War II, United States ships in the Escort
Carrier category were given the Ship Prefix 'CVE'. Crews joked that this
stood for “Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable” due to the ship's
complete lack of armor and high numbers of ships constructed. During
World War II, British and American soldiers referred to the Landing
Ship, Tank, abbreviated LST, as 'Long Slow Target' or 'Large Slow
Target' when facing German forces. It was 382 ft (116 m) long, but some
could only manage 10-12 knots fully laden. After Finnish coastal defence
ship Ilmarinen went down with 271 souls after hitting a mine on 13
September 1941 the 132 survivors were nicknamed “Ilmarisen uimaseura”,
“Ilmarinen's swimming club.”